Max's Musings

Soundtrack, Feb 12, Perfidia

Up to now, I've selected songs that inspired stories. This one's a little different: the story inspired the song choice.

The story involved is the third of my "Lauderdale Tales" , "Ozzie's Tale" . In both this story and in the source material, betrayal plays a roll, so I wanted a "theme song" that was about betrayal. The perfect choice, of course, is the Alberto Domínguez Spanish-language song "Perfidia." For the language-impaired--that would include me!--"perfidia" is Spanish for "betrayal." The song was a 1940 Xavier Cugat hit in the US, but I chose the Trini Lopez rendition, partly because the Youtube video includes the lyrics and partly because, well, Trini.

The melody will be familiar to most. It certainly was to me, once I heard it, although I couldn't have named the song from just hearing the melody. It's appeared in many places, ranging from films like Casablanca and The Mambo Kings to TV series like Dexter and Sense8. Desi Arnaz sang the Spanish version in the 1941 film The Farmer Takes a Wife, a movie that featured Gloria Swanson's return to movies after a seven year absence.

In my story, the song is referenced at the beginning and the end. At the beginning, it's playing in the gift shop at Graceland and at the end it's playing on the radio at the B&B where Ozzie, the protagonist, spent an accidentally perfidious night. The lyrics actually match the story's plot pretty well.